


Shepard is Missing (Dead)

by StrandsofNehn



Series: Viola Shepard [9]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/M, Introspection, Open to Interpretation, Post ME3, Shakarian - Freeform, after the beam, ambiguous me3 ending, he lost her, i'll never be over shakarian, of he thinks he lost her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 05:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5856718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrandsofNehn/pseuds/StrandsofNehn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garrus' thoughts being stuck on that nondescript planet without Shepard. Angsty, can be interpreted as hopeful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shepard is Missing (Dead)

There were times before that Garrus had missed her, but never like this.

When she went back into space, chasing down Geth bullshit leads and he was on the Citadel, he missed her. It was a longing to see a friend, a… mentor, at the time.

Then she… Then the Normandy was destroyed. That was worse. He and Wrex actually went to a bar after the funeral and drank too much and were almost arrested, but, he mourned, he moved on. In a way. 

He still missed her on Omega, an ache in his heart that was dull and persistent that he could feel in between the tracks of his battle-playlist, and hear her ‘dib’ a kill. And it was harder, in a way, when she was in that Alliance Detention Center.

She was _there,_ alive, but she was out of reach and she _had_ to be out of mind. He tried, hard-- very hard. The task force and Reaper prep was of the utmost importance but there would be times he could do little else but remember the way Vi smiled at him that first night, or how she gave him a _"turian kiss to start."_

He missed her like she was borrowing a piece of him that was vitally important. He would dream of her sometimes, happy mostly, but there were some that entertained the outcome he feared most. Being without her.

Now, five years and five lifetimes after first shaking her hand, the pain of that outcome isn’t limited to just dreams.

They’d been on this _inane_ planet for two earth years, it had been two years since she left him on the Normandy. Since the last time she told him she loved him, since _he_ told _her,_ before she ran to her doom and the galaxy’s salvation.

She told him, she explicitly told him, that when the time came,

_“--if it's you or me,”_

that she would do this. 

_“-- it'll be you. I will always choose you.”_

And she never listened-- never heard him! She stood there with that attentive look, listened to all the words he said--

_“we’re in this till the end!”_

words he _desperately_ needed her to hear,

_“don’t make the decision to die now!”_

_\--_ andwords that she didn’t accept.

Her shrinking silhouette would be the final piece of evidence that Viola Jaeda Shepard truly did what she wanted. What she thought was best. Protected what she valued before herself. That she didn’t _hear him._

He didn’t want to be in a world without her any more than she wanted to be in a world without him. In his darker moments, he curses her infallible morals and value for life.

He is so, so, so incredibly proud of her though.

How can he not be? Even Krogan were erecting statues in her honor.

The woman he loved, his amazing and determined, kindhearted and hotheaded partner saved the galaxy.

She saved it, what? Three times now? More, actually. How can he not be proud of her character? Her courage? Her sense of honor and duty? Her steadfast nature and easy smile? The smile that didn't actually come easy?

How can he not be proud of her for putting others above herself, above the life she professed she wanted, for taking up the mantle of spearheading an against-all-odds campaign and achieving victory? She is--

... She _was_ extraordinary. There will never be another person like her again. And the galaxy is less for it.

He still dreams of her, smiling, laughing, and telling him some terrible joke she heard from EDI or Joker, on a beach somewhere with a simple house behind them, at peace and _happy._ Sometimes there's even be a turian/human baby. It's an ugly little thing, but…

But then he wakes in Shepard’s cabin, alone. He turns his head and sees her name on that damn plague on the desk instead of the board on Deck 3 and his heart splinters just a bit more.

He has run his fingers over those blocky, human letters more times than he can count wondering if he should put the name on the board, or continue to hope without hope.

Shepard once told him that he didn’t hold false hope, that he saw things as they were, that it was one of the things she loved about him.

He isn’t certain that's true anymore.

He knows she’s dead. He’s not stupid. Even the great Commander Shepard isn’t immortal, but he can’t make himself give up on her. He can’t make himself put her on the shelf, to be forgotten, to be ‘ _the woman I loved before your mother_ ' like she wanted.

No. He can’t forget her.

How can he put her name up on that wall? With all the friends they already lost? He can’t abandon her to become just another name in history, instead of a woman with dimples and a puff ball on the top of her head and teenage dreams to become a dancer.

His heart keens with agony, and he has to remind himself to breathe.

_People won’t remember her right._

They didn’t even represent her correctly when she was _alive_. He cannot, as the one person who knew her best, allow Viola Shepard, not just Commander Shepard, to be lost. How could he ever forget her?

_\--There’s no Shepard without Vakarian--_

The sharp pressure that comes with every intake of breath would be reminder enough. The cybernetics in his leg from that day would be enough. Spirits, his damn face would be enough.

She is a ghost constantly moving throughout his day. Memories of her adorn every part of the ship, even in the men’s room, where she had never been in, except that one time under Cerberus when she was “sweeping the ship for excessive bugs” and scared the shit out of an ensign.

He catches himself staring at nothing sometimes. The same nothing that was Vi’s grin or sarcastic comment only moments before. Every time he sees her that sharp pain worsens and his heart rate increases as that grin and that playful tone would shift into a grave expression and pleading trembler before he sees her running towards the beam.

_\-- Know that I love you, always._

Spirits. He _misses_ her.

“Garrus?” Tali’s voice carries over the empty space of the cabin, “Joker says it’s time.” He suppresses a sigh, straightens up and walks towards the elevator.

_You’ll never be alone._

“Let’s go home, Admiral.”

  


End file.
